I was desperate to join this discussion yesterday but had too much going on. Between this thread and similar discussions on Twitter, I can’t help but be reminded of all those feminism/sexism memes; you know the ones with men saying they’ll never know what women want, they are such complex and mysterious creatures while a woman desperately tries to break into the conversation to tell them exactly what we want. In these conversations we have many folk from all over Europe saying they have nothing against the UK and would happily vote for a good song but still they are ignored while others maintain there is a political conspiracy and even sending Ed Sheeran won’t help.
I do think politics play a small part in the voting, but it absolutely comes second to the song. As others have said, if it was truly all about politics, Russia and Israel would not regularly score highly. It seems to me that the attitude form other countries is “they have sent a rubbish song, which doesn’t merit any votes, and this is indicative of their feelings towards Europe”. It could easily be “they have sent a great song which demonstrates that politics are irrelevant here, it’s all about the music and they smashed it – 12 points to the UK”. That said though, for everyone commentating that Brexit does not account for our performance over 2 years, I lived in a shared flat in Madrid in 1999. We were two Spaniards, One Argentian, One Cuban, One American and me (UK). The landlady had only done business with the Spaniards but came around to meet the rest of us. She went crazy at me, when she found out I was from the UK, saying I had to leave and she wold not lease a room to me because of the UK’s attitude to the EU. Even back in 1999, there were “Eurosceptics” and the threat of a referendum and our EU neighbours knew it and didn’t like it. Once the Spanish flatmates had got a word in edgeways to tell her I was Scottish though, her entire attitude changed and she was happy as larry to have me there.
Our song this year was so frustrating. The radio/single edit is much better than the live performance but still somewhat lacklustre. James Newman seems like a thoroughly decent bloke and a highly talented and respected songwriter but two things are clear (1), he knocked this one up quickly and (2) there’s a reason why he normally writes for others rather than performing his songs himself. The radio edit starts really well. I’ll be honest, every single time it comes on my Eurovsion 2021 playlist, I’ve had to look it up to remind myself which country it is: The verses are strong and build to a chorus which just doesn’t get going and lets the whole thing down. The chorus should have a thumping baseline and a real party/dance atmosphere but it is so lacklustre and instead we get these cheesy 1990’s/Mambo No 5 style trumpets. His live performance made everything worse – he was breathless, out of time and flat. He seemed really nervous and I genuinely felt for him but at the end of the day, the contest was stronger than ever this year and it is absolutely right that he just didn’t fit into anybody’s top ten which unfortunately resulted in the zero points result. As others have said, he wasn’t awarded “nul points”, it’s just a consequence of the way we vote for our top ten.
I’ve been saying for a few years now that if the UK are serious about getting a better result (honestly, I don’t think we really want to win but it would be nice to place in the top three), we need to explore the UK as a whole and challenge the view that UK=England. Bring in a singer-songwriter from Scotland, NI or Wales. We don’t need flashy gimmicks or joke songs – just a really good tune, performed by a talented singer. They would also need to play the circuit though. Lloyd-Webber and Jade Ewen did this really well and it paid off by placing 5th (although on this thread, some are looking at this as a huge failure). Get the song into people’s heads around Europe and go onto talk shows to show that we are serious about competing and passionate about the song. Even better if the performer can use this platform to talk about their Scottish/Welsh/NI heritage and pride in their roots. They might even incorporate a bit of Gaelic or Welsh into the lyrics – prove to the EBU members that we’re not all of the Amanda Holden mindset. Most importantly though, we have to follow this through year on year. Most winners don’t come from nowhere. We see certain countries hovering around the top 5 before they finally make it.
I’ve watched Eurovision for as long as I can remember and I fully credit it with giving me a fascination for languages at a very early age which went on to shape my studies, my career and my life – living and travelling in several countries around Europe in my late teens and twenties. I would hate to think that the UK/BBC would pull the plug on this event just because we don’t do well (and again, I repeat, this is a self-fulfilling prophesy because we don’t invest enough in the song and performer in the first place). One great thing about covid restrictions easing is that hopefully next year, more people will be out in pubs and clubs. There were far too many people watching and voicing opinions this year who wouldn’t normally get involved. Moaning because they don’t understand the voting and confidently proclaiming that we need to send Steps next year because it’s exactly what Europe wants. No, it’s really not and we’ll come last again for sending an aging group with a dated sound who were last relevant over 20 years ago. We are so bloody arrogant about what we perceive to be a euro-pop sound without noticing that tastes really have moved on.